ERIC EJ1145658: Implementing E-Learning at the University of Nicosia: Making It Possible

2011·3.3 MB·English

by  ERIC

Teaching English with Technology – Special Issue on LAMS and Learning Design, 11 (1), 110-147.

IMPLEMENTING E-LEARNING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NICOSIA:
MAKING IT POSSIBLE
by Chris Alexander
The University of Nicosia
alexander.c @ unic.ac.cy

Abstract
This practical paper reports on significant Learning Activity Management System (LAMS)
work currently being undertaken at The University of Nicosia in Cyprus; a growing number of
full e-courses have been, and are being, created using LAMS and a suite of specialized
programs in order to provide an alternate and more convenient educational service for students.
Critical administrative, organizational, personnel, pedagogical and technological issues have
had to be addressed to support this important project. Some implications of the way students
work online will be discussed, sample e-lecture materials will be presented, and suggestions for
future technical development will be made. The paper concludes with the assertion that LAMS
can be used to deliver local and international full e-learning courses effectively and
inexpensively within a supportive and dynamic administrative and organizational super-
structure.

1. Overview of new e-learning courses
In summer 2009, after having trialled LAMS for one year, a decision was taken by the University
of Nicosia to support student learning further by developing a number of full e-learning courses
to be delivered using LAMS. It was recognised that a growing number of students were working
part-time or full-time and it was felt that such students would be greatly assisted if some courses
could be taken online. The institutional strategy implemented therefore involved:
(1) setting up a project team1;
(2) identifying undergraduate degree electives commonly taken by students;
(3) sending a formal call from the President of the Council to lecturers teaching the electives
enquiring whether they would be interested in developing an e-course elective;
(4) developing full courses in the most practicable and visually-advanced way;

1 The project team comprised Dr Chris Alexander (Head of LAMS e-course development, LAMS system
administrator, student/teacher trainer, student management team leader), three fully trained LAMS lab assistants
under the supervision of the Head, Ms Anna Lazari, Director of the Centre for Life Long Learning, Dr Dmitry
Apraksin, the Head of the Computer Centre and the President of the Council (Dr Nicos Peristianis)
110
Teaching English with Technology – Special Issue on LAMS and Learning Design, 11 (1), 110-147.

(5) getting Senate approval to trial e-courses;
(6) trialling and upgrading the e-courses.
By summer 2010, the University of Nicosia LAMS project team had developed or were
developing over twenty e-courses. Moreover it had embarked on developing a full Association of
Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) e-programme or had suggested embarking on
extensive and technologically innovative English-for-Speakers-of-Other-Languages (ESOL)
ALTE level A1 and A2-B1 programmes. Three separate LAMS servers had been set up by May
2010: a student server (http://lams.unic.ac.cy:8080/lams/), a LAMS test server
(http://lamstest.unic.ac.cy:8080/lams/) and a Professional Studies LAMS Server
(http://ps.unic.ac.cy:8080/lams/index.do).
Figure 1 shows a screenshot of the re-faced main student LAMS server
(http://lams.unic.ac.cy:8080/lams/index.do). The Webpage has two recorded student training
videos2, an email helpdesk and a manned telephone helpdesk that is automatically re-directed to
two BlackBerry mobile devices if calls are not taken. Two additional easy-to-remember URLs
were also created for this page. (http://www.online.unic.ac.cy and http://online.unic.ac.cy). A
Skype helpdesk had initially been set up, but as it had never been used by any student, it was
removed.

2 To view the videos go to the webpage on http://lams.unic.ac.cy:8080/lams/index.do
111
Teaching English with Technology – Special Issue on LAMS and Learning Design, 11 (1), 110-147.

Figure 1. Refaced main student LAMS page.

In figure 2, a screenshot is presented of the current listing of undergraduate e-courses offered to
resident local and international students. There is a wide range of disciplines available, for
instance, e-courses include maths, accounting, philosophy, psychology, ESOL, cultural
geography, and computing. Non-resident international students have also been targeted and a
marketing strategy is now being developed to facilitate e-course delivery.
112
Teaching English with Technology – Special Issue on LAMS and Learning Design, 11 (1), 110-147.

Figure 2. A listing of current courses available to resident local and international students.

With regard to the basic building blocks of an e-course, an e-course usually comprised seven
parts:
(1) a printable course overview and a flash-based presentation from PowerPoint, recorded
and annotated;
(2) a general public course forum for exchange between lecturer and students;
(3) recorded flash-based presentation lecture sequences with accompanying sequence tools;
(4) course specific forums;
(5) printable presentation PDFs in share resources tool;
(6) video film on how to do course submissions and course submission tasks;
(7) recorded flash-based presentation on how to revise for the final exam.
All courses have an important and thorough written final paper or electronic final timed exam to
be taken on site at the University of Nicosia or in an authorised testing centre abroad. Figure 3
provides a sample screenshot of a Political Science e-course offered in LAMS. In this screenshot
these seven typical e-components are presented. In order for course assessment to be in line with
University academic policy, assessment consisted of a minor weighting for completing all
113
Teaching English with Technology – Special Issue on LAMS and Learning Design, 11 (1), 110-147.

lectures and lecture related activities, a minor weighting for doing course submissions and a
major weighting for the supervised final exam.
In figure 4 there is a screenshot of a recorded flash-based PowerPoint presentation3
framed in a LAMS noticeboard tool. The lecture sequence also includes embedded videos in
noticeboard tools, a Q/A tool and assessment tool tasks to check lecture comprehension; for
more examples of Articulate flash presentation lectures used in this project see here4. Figure 5
presents a screenshot of a framed Camtasia Studio (version 6) video in noticeboard explaining
how students should do the course submission.

ECTS Course overview
General course forum
Lecture sequences
Printable lecture-note PDFs
Course Submissions
Information of final exam

Figure 3. A sample screenshot of a Political Science e-course offered in LAMS.

3 http://dl.unic.ac.cy/PSCI_articulate/ch2/player.html
4 http://jas4.webs.com/onlinestudies.htm
114
Teaching English with Technology – Special Issue on LAMS and Learning Design, 11 (1), 110-147.

Figure 4. A flash-based power-point presentation5 framed in a LAMS noticeboard tool.

Figure 5. Camtasia Studio video in noticeboard explaining course submission task.

5 http://dl.unic.ac.cy/PSCI_articulate/ch2/player.html
115
Teaching English with Technology – Special Issue on LAMS and Learning Design, 11 (1), 110-147.

2. Key additional software used and learning design issues
The main software packages used in this project were Articulate Studio6 (Version 9) and
Camtasia Studio7 (Versions 6 and 7). Articulate E-Learning Studio is a powerful integrated
package that enables users to quickly create e-learning courses from PowerPoint and to develop
high-quality interactive content, quizzes, assessments, and surveys. Camtasia Studio is a reliable
screen recorder and editor for windows. However it was found that file sizes of published
Articulate lectures were significantly smaller than published Camtasia screen-recorded lectures;
Please note that this high-quality 25-minute fully edited Camtasia Studio 7 film8 is over 75MB in
size, whereas this9 52-minute Articulate lecture is only about 6 MB. As a result, to accommodate
any bandwidth limitations locally and internationally, most e-learning content creation was
undertaken in Articulate.
Figure 6 provides a screenshot of the Articulate Add-Ins Toolbar in PowerPoint and
Figure 7 shows a screenshot of Camtasia Studio Editor Version 7.
Articulate tab in PowerPoint

Figure 6. The Articulate Add-Ins toolbar in PowerPoint.

6 http://www.articulate.com/products/studio.php
7 http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp
8 http://dl.unic.ac.cy/NEWLAMSTRAININGVIDEO/newlamstrainingvideo.html
9 http://dl.unic.ac.cy/PSCI_articulate/ch2/player.html
116
Teaching English with Technology – Special Issue on LAMS and Learning Design, 11 (1), 110-147.

Figure 7. Camtasia Studio 7 Editor.

Camtasia studio proved useful for preparing training videos for how to do online course
submissions and sample final-exam-question training films In Figures 8 and 9 there are some
screenshots of how Camtasia Studio was utilised for supporting online submission work and
final exam preparation.

117
Teaching English with Technology – Special Issue on LAMS and Learning Design, 11 (1), 110-147.

Figure 8. Camtasia Studio video being used to support Submit File tool.

Figure 9. Camtasia Studio video being used to support final exam preparation.

With regard to learning design issues, in spite of the fact that LAMS 2.3.3 has a wide range of
authoring tools, only 9 tools were used (see Figure 10).
118
Teaching English with Technology – Special Issue on LAMS and Learning Design, 11 (1), 110-147.

Figure 10. LAMS tools available and actual tools used.

Published Articulate presentations and Camtasia Studio videos were embedded in the FCK editor
using the coding in the editor’s Source presented in Figure 11.

<div><iframe height="600" width="100%"
src="http://dl.unic.ac.cy/PSCI_articulate/ch1/player.html"></iframe></div>

Lecture URL Recorded content saved outside LAMS and iframed here

119